Thanks Paul for this awesome, and extremely helpful, review of this! Here you go folks, no more shredded knees!!
Having been an avid racer for many years now, I’m getting very sick of one obstacle. Barbed wire crawls.
They’re usually rocky. They slice my knees to shreds.
So, for the Beast, I added a new piece of clothing to my gear and picked up a pair of McDavid Hex Knee pads. You can get these from Dicks, but buy them from Amazon for a million more color options.
Relatively cheap at about $25 a pair, and in a variety of sizes (I bought L and that was fine).
The entire goal for me was knee protection. Crawling through the crap, I just wanted to come out without open wounds – and these absolutely nailed that for me. When I didn’t need them, I can just slide them down over my calf sleeves, and they’re totally out of the way, but I tended to wear them over my knee for much of the race.
After 9 hours, they started to feel a little chafy, but up until that point, no problems at all.
Product Info: http://www.mcdavidusa.com/
Rating: 4 star (good)
I picked up a pair of these based on this review and they have been awesome. I’ve worn them for 4 races now including the Boston Sprint and they have held up great. They’ve lost a little bit of the color but no tears or wear marks otherwise. I got extra large and the fit is very good. At first I thought I’d leave them around my calves and pull them up when needed but they are so comfortable, I leave them on my knees the entire race. Not having cut up knees after a race is awesome. Definitely recommend them
I just tried a pair at Rugged Maniac yesterday. I think mine are a bit too small so I wore them on my calves for most of the race. Including the first barbed wire crawl because I totally forgot about them until halfway through it. =) I remembered on the second one – pulled them up, went through the pipes and crawl, and put them back down. No sore knees afterward.